We're Going Down
by Echoing Fantasy
Summary: AU. Captured with a fever, Tsuna faces torture at the hands of his friends. Or are they? Dark. R27 fluff.


_We're Going Down_

__Traitors.__

Pain. Immense, unending pain. From the very moment he'd seen Yamamoto Takeshi, casually grinning like it was the biggest joke in the world, but with eyes full of __loathing, __shove that sack over his head and tighten it like a noose, he had felt nothing but pain.

And when his arms had been snapped, Gokudera's chilling voice mockingly calling him __Boss, __as he dragged Tsuna along by his broken limbs to the place he now was, it had left shards thick as dynamites down his throat, cutting his voice raw.

When his legs had been sliced, the hamstring calmly cut by his Mist, who sneered and smacked him across the face for crying, calling him __a weak mafia bitch, __something in his soul had shriveled up and died.

__They never cared about you. __

They were all there. His Elements, gathered around him, glaring and sneering, spitting and hissing words of cold contempt at him, before taking their turns breaking him physically. Ryohei would heal his wounds, only for them to be inflicted over and over again. Rinse and repeat a thousand times, enough to keep him from dying of blood loss. Sometimes they'd leave him alone for a day, when Reborn (and oh, how Tsuna __screamed __for mercy, how he'd begged Reborn to tell him what he'd done wrong, up until Reborn had pulled out a gun and blasted his left kneecap to smithereens) told them he was too __weak __to continue beating on.

When that happened, they left the room (windowless, cold and stony, with shackles in the wall for him to hang by) for a day, maybe more, only returning to feed him slop and kick the bucket he used for the bathroom towards him.

Eventually, the tears stopped coming. He didn't understand why they hated him so - they never told him anything, apart from mocking him and calling him names. When that happened, they devised new ways to make him scream, make him cry. It worked, and eventually the pain became routine, as routine as Ryohei fixing him, tying nerves and muscle back together with a simple flex of his hand.

His back held scars now from the number of times Reborn had applied the whip to him. He made Tsuna count, too, and if Tsuna lost count at any time, he'd start over. It was hell. It was a torture befitting of a hitman, and Tsuna hated him for it. When the whipping was done, sometimes Reborn would leave him alone. Other times, he and Hibari would team up and break Tsuna's bones one at a time, until all Tsuna could do was pass out from the pain.

But Lambo brought him back with a rough jolt of electricity, and Tsuna would flail and scream until he remembered where he was, and then he would sag, broken and defeated, against the wall.

He lost track of time. Hours turned to days, and then became lost in the haze of pain. Fear and anguish turned to rage, lethal and hot. Instead of screaming for mercy when his attackers came in, he screamed for their blood, howled that he would kill them all for betraying them, for sullying the name of Vongola. He told them what he planned to do to them even as they tortured him. The torture fueled his hate, fueled his pain, until everything was a rich red haze.

And then one day, the world turned on its head.

__"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM OUR BOSS!"__

__"You've got an awful lot of nerve touching what doesn't belong to you."__

__"I'm certainly staying calm for this one. Nobody hurts my brother and gets to run away."__

__"COWARDS! YOU'LL FACE EXTREME PUNISHMENT!"__

__"Taking someone hostage when they're already vulnerable… you mafia scum are surely the worst."__

__"Prepare to be bitten to death, you miserable rats."__

And then, a voice Tsuna recognized. It was the voice of the man he'd been in love with, before all this had happened.

__"Chaos, bitches."__

Screams, and the crackle of Flames. Still lost in his haze, Tsuna growled and snapped his teeth, longing for blood and bone. He wanted the room to run red. He wanted to splatter his so-called "Guardians" all over the walls, make their screams echo like his had.

But no, someone else was doing that now. Someone was cutting them down like they were nothing, drawing closer to Tsuna's location. He grinned, baring his teeth. He would burn them alive, once they got close enough. His captors hadn't noticed it, but his Flames had gradually burned through the collar keeping him from using them. And now, he would burn the world down around him, and end the pain once and for all.

Silence gradually replaced sound, and then there came the sound of wet footsteps across the stone.

__"T-Tsuna-nii?"__

__"Don't."__

Tsuna growled, the sound echoing off the walls. He heard them take a step back, and snapped his teeth like a dog pulling at his chain. He'd long since gone mad, and all he wanted now was death. His or theirs, it didn't matter.

__"Is he… c-can't we—?"__

__"Tsuna."__

Gentle. Such a gentle voice. The haze cleared, just a little, and Tsuna could focus on the figure, his hands up in submission, slowly walking forward. He wore the skin of Reborn, and Tsuna grinned, because __this __was the man he wanted to hurt the most. __"I'm not going to hurt you, okay? Look." __He drew away his gun, and let go of his lizard. __"I'm unarmed, see? I'm not going to hurt you."__

Tsuna quieted his growling, pretending to understand. Inside, he was dancing, because the closer the man drew, the closer Death came to taking him away. He waited as the man kneeled down in front of him, looking up to work at the chains keeping him bound.

That's when he struck. Lunging forward, Tsuna snapped his teeth down around the man's throat, digging in as deep as he could. He could hear screams and gasps, but that didn't matter because he could taste blood, and it tasted __delicious. __Working his jaw, he tried to dig deeper, only to be blocked by the irritating bone. He hung on, waiting for the struggle to begin. If he couldn't chew the man to death, then he'd wait for him to bleed out.

But the man didn't struggle. He didn't scream. Instead, his hands raised up, one to gently pet down Tsuna's hair, the other to caress his back. __"It's alright, Tsuna. I understand how you must feel. You think we've betrayed you, don't you?"__

**__**You did betray me!**__**He screamed mentally, locking eyes with the man whose life he held between his jaws. _**_**You hurt me! You hate me! LIARS! TRAITORS!**_**_

__"Mukuro, if you would?"__

One of the others stepped forward. With his arms still tied and his jaws on one man, Tsuna couldn't defend himself as the other reached forward, fingers brushing against his forehead. The red eye swirled, and the black lines in it changed, shifting. Dizziness swept through Tsuna's mind, and the sensation that he was somewhere else came over him.

__"Where is he? What the fuck did you assholes do to him?!" A silver-haired man screamed at a crumpled figure on the floor. Surrounding him where the other Guardians, all looking livid. But Reborn, standing at the door, looked much worse. __

__The man on the floor, bloody and gurgling, laughed. "H-he's in a b-better place, now, t-thanks to all of you."__

__"The fuck do you mean? Where did you take him?"__

__"N-nowhere you'll e-e-ever f-find. H-he thinks his p-precious G-Guardians are r-responsible for his torture… hehe, its a-amazing wh-what you ca-can do with a man th-that's half o-out of his mind with a f-fever, eh?"__

__"YOU SONNAVU—"__

__"Gokudera, don't."__

__Gokudera drew short at Reborn's dark tone. The hitman walked forward, planting his gun between the man's brows. __

__"The man you took happens to be my lover," he hissed, nodded as the other's face went pale. "That's right. He's ___**_**mine. **_**___And you just took him for your own fun and games? Do you really think I'll let that lie? That I won't find him?"__

__"T-that's impossible! W-we've made sure—"__

__"You've made sure of nothing, except all of you are going to die today."__

__**BANG!**__

__The body dropped to the floor, Reborn calmly wiping a drop of blood off his cheek. "Find him," he ordered calmly. "And do it now."__

Fever? He had a fever? But—

Wait. That's right. He'd been in bed before Yamamoto had… but had it even been Yamamoto? Confusion took over where some of the rage had previously been buried.

The hands on his head and back didn't stop stroking even as Tsuna watched the memory, and tried to think back. Reborn didn't react to the pain, knowing Tsuna had lost his mind somewhere in the haze, and was now fighting to reclaim it back, to put the pieces back where they belonged.

At length, Tsuna slowly withdrew his teeth from where they'd been clamped down on Reborn's neck, pulling back just enough to look over to where the bodies of the men who tortured him lay. The Guardians parted, giving him a better view.

A hitch in Tsuna's breathing told Reborn all he needed to know. The tears that filled his eyes seconds later was only the icing. He scooped Tsuna up close, kissing his ear, his nose, his eyes as the Guardians relaxed, Mukuro working to free him from the chains while Ryohei came forward to heal his wounds. "It's going to be okay, Tsunayoshi. We'll get you back home, where you belong."

"I'm sorry," Tsuna sobbed into his chest, "I'm sorry."

"Shhh. It's not your fault. Just let us take care of everything, alright? Close your eyes, sweetheart, and get some rest. I'll be right here when you wake up, I'm promise."

"So will we," Mukuro said, the others nodded and gathering close. They had their Sky back, and the urge to comfort was strong. Unfortunately, Reborn had first dibs as lover, but that didn't mean they couldn't stand close and create a barrier between him and the world.

Tsuna did eventually drift off, although he kept a tight grip on Reborn the entire way back home, right up until they had to pull him away to get him on the operating table under Shamal's careful eye.

Author's Notes

This was one of my favorite requests to work on, alongside the wedding one.


End file.
